


born under a bad sign

by CallicoKitten



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s03e08 Visionary, F/M, Hale Family Feels, Mildly Dubious Consent, Pre-Canon, The Author Regrets Everything, derek hale cannot have nice things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 06:29:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallicoKitten/pseuds/CallicoKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The blood on his hands doesn’t go away no matter how many times he washes them. He can still smell it – the oozing blackness, the tang of blood and salty tears.</p><p>(If he closes his eyes he can hear her gasp and choke and feel her go limp in his arms.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	born under a bad sign

**Author's Note:**

> i've never written derek before so it's probably awful.
> 
>  
> 
> Warning for Peter being Peter.

The blood on his hands doesn’t go away no matter how many times he washes them. He can still smell it – the oozing blackness, the tang of blood and salty tears.

(If he closes his eyes he can hear her gasp and choke and feel her go limp in his arms.)

-

“ _Different but still beautiful,_ ” his mother says, touches his cheek and cups his face like it’s all okay. Like this is normal. She smiles at him, warm and accepting but she shouldn’t. 

She shouldn’t be here telling him it’s okay because Derek’s pretty sure this is as far from fucking okay as he can get.

When Laura accidentally wolfed out in front of her first boyfriend who fainted and Laura had to convince him that it was just a drunken nightmare (even though they weren’t drinking) that was okay. 

This is not _fucking_ okay. 

She should be looking at him like he’s a monster (because he is) not like a kid who screwed up.

He’s a killer.

-

Peter avoids him after Paige and Derek’s glad. 

(“It wasn’t your fault,” Laura says quietly, brushes his hair back. “You didn’t know, Peter never should have suggested it.”)

But Derek should have known not to listen to Peter.

Should have said no.

-

They find Paige’s body in a ditch; it spreads through school like wildfire. Another suspicious animal attack.

 _Hung out with the Hales,_ they whisper. _Always knew there was something odd about them._

His friends leave one by one, it’s better that way.

-

He goes to the funeral because his mother says he should, “It’s what’s right, Derek. You need to pay your respects.” She goes with him, Laura does too. They hold his hands and Derek looks everywhere but at Paige’s parents.

(He listens to the priest talk about how unfortunate it was that she was attacked, that the animal who killed her deserves to be destroyed and Derek wonders if anyone knows, if anyone else can smell the blood and tears that cling to him.)

There’s a blonde woman in the back, watching the mourners with a detached disinterest. The sunlight hits her hair at just the right angle and Derek is suddenly struck by how absurdly beautiful she is.

-

Cora doesn’t understand why his eyes have changed colour.

He doesn’t know how to explain. 

-

“I’m sorry,” Peter says from the doorway of Derek’s bedroom. It’s the first thing he’s said to Derek since he killed Paige and if it’s an act he’s making a good show of it; head hung low, shuffling his feet. “I didn’t think it would...” he trails off.

“Go away, Peter.”

Peter doesn’t because Peter is Peter and Derek snarls as his uncle steps into his room and situates himself in his desk chair. “I really didn’t know.” He says quietly.

His heartbeat is steady and Derek knows that Peter didn’t know, knows because that night in the school the stench of fear was too strong to just be from them and he had heard his uncle’s gasp. Laura blamed Peter (his mother did too) but Peter didn’t nod, didn’t let his girlfriend get bitten, didn’t stick his claws through her, didn’t feel her heart stop.

That was all Derek.

“If I wasn’t a werewolf,” he mutters. “If I was just _normal_ this would never have...” he trails off and Peter cocks his head.

“What we have is a gift, Derek,” he parrots and Derek wonders for the first time if he really believes it and if he does how can he? “You know,” Peter says after a beat. “If it didn’t take maybe she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe she wasn’t good enough for you.”

Derek wonders for the first time how angry his mother would be if he tore out Peter’s throat.

He stands, teeth bared, eyes a cold blue. “You need to leave.”

Peter’s eyes widen a fraction, the corner of his mouth quirks up into a disbelieving smile.

“ _Now._ ” Derek roars.

Peter does.

-

He stops sleeping because every time he does all he can see is her.

-

He wants someone to punish him.

He _killed_ someone. 

Destroyed her.

He wants someone them flinch away in disgust (or fear), he wants them to shout at him, to tell him how wrong he was, to give him what he fucking deserves for _killing her_.

It’s building up inside him, freezing over, breaking him apart.

(Every now and again Peter will hiss _killer_ like it’s a joke and Talia will cuff him, claws out, because she knows that if she lets Derek it’ll get out of control – Derek hates her for it. Hates them all.)

-

When school starts up again Derek can’t bring himself to care. His grades slip, he starts fights, he starts playing lacrosse so he has an excuse to beat the shit of people.

“What’s going on with you?” his mother asks, face drawn with worry after the first awful Parent-Teachers evening.

Derek wants to laugh.

Derek wants to cry.

He wants to scream and rage and break something because _how can they not see?_ How can they be so blind?

“It’s not her fault,” Laura says, “Things have been hard since Deucalion, you know that.”

Derek thinks he should be more important than some old wolf whose gone rogue. 

Apparently not. 

-

Kate is beautiful and Kate is older and Kate is dangerous – everything Paige wasn’t.

Everything his family warns him off.

He knows it’s wrong but there’s a part of her that recognises the darkness in him, the part that winks and smirks and calls him _bad boy_ as a hiss through her teeth. She doesn’t treat him like he’s made of fucking glass and she doesn’t tread carefully around him like he’s going to explode. 

She drags her nails across his skin and bites down on his neck hard enough to bruise, hard enough to bleed.

Peter quips about a new ladylove and wolf whistles because he’s fucking immature and Derek wonders how pissed they’ll all be if they ever find out.

(He thinks one some level maybe he knows that she’s an Argent, his mother had sat them all down and warned them they were in town, used Deucalion as a cautionary tale and why else would a beautiful older woman be interested in him? A fuck up with blood on his hands? Peter he could understand. An older guy going for Laura? Sure. But him? No.

He doesn’t look at these feelings too closely, shoves them down and buries them in bites and scratches and bruises where she grips him.)

-

Death follows him like a curse, now there’s blood and ash on his hands and stench of burnt flesh clinging to his nostrils.

(Laura still holds him close and says, “It wasn’t your fault, baby brother.” And Derek sobs because he’s too tired to scream and kick and rage and all he can say is, “Yes it is. _It is._ It is. It is. It _is_ ,” until the words run together in to gasps and growls and choked noises, he tries to push her away because he _killed their family_.

But Laura still holds him. Holds him tight and doesn’t let go.)


End file.
